Night Train

A Novel

Detective Mike Hoolihan has seen it all. A fifteen-year veteran of the force, she's gone from walking a beat, to robbery, to homicide. But one case--this case--has gotten under her skin. When Jennifer Rockwell, darling of the community and daughter of a respected career cop--now top brass--takes her own life, no one is prepared to believe it. Especially her father, Colonel Tom. Homicide Detective Mike Hoolihan, longtime colleague and friend of Colonel Tom, is ready to "put the case down." Suicide. Closed. Until Colonel Tom asks her to do the one thing any grieving father would ask: take a second look. Not since his celebrated novel Money has Amis turned his focus on America to such remarkable effect. Fusing brilliant wordplay with all the elements of a classic whodunit, Amis exposes a world where surfaces are suspect (no matter how perfect), where paranoia is justified (no matter how pervasive), and where power and pride are brought low by the hidden recesses of our humanity.

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Given how much I usually hate Martin Amis's books ("London Fields," "The Rachel Papers"), the biggest compliment I can this is that I didn't hate it. Make no mistake, I didn't like it, but I didn't make me want to throw it in disgust. Basically its Amis does "hardboiled." And, like many literary types who stoop to genre fiction, there's a self-satisfied irony and lack of understanding of the genre's conventions that keep getting in the way. I never really bought Amis trying to write from a woman's point of view, much less an American woman.